Westlake football team wins season opener decisively,




WAYNE HARRISON/The Acorn  SUCCESSFUL GAME PLAN-Warriors' football head coach Jim Benkert confers with his players during last Friday night's rout of St. Joseph's of Santa Maria High School. Westlake won 49-0.

WAYNE HARRISON/The Acorn SUCCESSFUL GAME PLAN-Warriors’ football head coach Jim Benkert confers with his players during last Friday night’s rout of St. Joseph’s of Santa Maria High School. Westlake won 49-0.


49-0 over St. Joseph’s


By Wayne Harrison


Acorn Sports Writer

Last year the offseason didn’t last so long.


The Westlake Warrior football team won a California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) championship in 1999 and was riding the crest of that emotional wave even as the 2000 season arrived.


Then Westlake proved it had the goods to make an honest attempt at repeating its title, losing only one regular season game—by virtue of a missed two-point conversion at Clovis West—and going unbeaten for a second straight year in the tough Marmonte League.


It was different for this year’s Warriors, particularly the seniors.


They lost a heartbreaker vs. Lompoc in the CIF semifinals last fall and the beginning of the 2001 season couldn’t begin soon enough.


The Westlake football team defeated St. Joseph’s of Santa Maria 49-0 last Friday night, playing a week before most Southland schools, but happy to finally get to Week One of a new football season.


"It’s been so long," said Chris Cannon, a senior wide receiver-defensive back, who last year was taken off the Westlake field in an ambulance for precautionary reasons after being injured vs. Lompoc.


"I’m just happy that we finally played our first game," Cannon said. "I’ve been playing for eight years and this is the way I wanted to start my last year of football."


Cannon’s first of two interceptions—with St. Joseph’s banging on the door and trying to stay in the game—highlighted a first-half in which Westlake demonstrated its dominance from the start and took complete control with a 21-point second quarter.


Westlake went ahead 7-0 on a 15-yard touchdown run by senior running back Jon Contos with 2:49 left in the first quarter, senior running back Kasey O’Brien then scored on runs of 30 and 10 yards, and after Cannon’s second interception of the first half, Westlake senior quarterback Todd Feiereisen hit Contos for a 5-yard score.


It was Cannon’s first interception, though, at the Westlake 2-yard line with 10:04 remaining in the second quarter, that prevented St. Joseph’s from scoring the tying or go-ahead touchdown, and precipitated an authoritative 98-yard, eight-play drive that upped the Westlake lead to 13-0.


"We were up 7-0 and they were driving down to score," said a satisfied Warrior head coach Jim Benkert. "And Chris Cannon made a big interception. That was a back-breaker for them."


O’Brien scored his third touchdown of the game early in the third quarter, a 5-yard run, giving Westlake a 35-0 advantage, and junior running backs Kenneth Mackins (a 17-yard run for a TD) and Chris Sparks (an 8-yard run), closed out the second-half scoring.


"The line did great," said O’Brien who ran for 50 yards on five carries. "They opened up some great cutbacks and some great holes. And the defense played great. Everyone performed well."


Westlake faces Buena Friday at home and Notre Dame at home next Friday, and then Hart at College of Canyons, on Fri. Sept. 21, as it prepares to face off with highly-touted Thousand Oaks in the Marmonte League opener, Thurs., Sept. 27, in a televised game at Warrior Stadium.


Feiereisen, who completed 8 of 12 passes for 151 yards and one touchdown, said the decisiveness of the first-game win helps the Warriors prepare mentally for the upcoming opponents.


"We had a lot of confidence coming in, but this is a huge confidence-booster," Feiereisen said. "We’ve got some big games coming up and we open with T.O. right off the bat in league. We worked hard coming into this game."


Contos, who led Westlake with 94 yards on eight carries, likes the way the Warriors’ schedule plays out. He thinks it will toughen he and his teammates for the postseason.


"You don’t want it to happen where you’ll get to the playoffs and all of a sudden you hit these real hard teams in a series," Contos said. "It’s valuable that you have the experience of close head to head games early on in the season. I think it helps you in the long run."


Senior running back-defensive back Chad Spears (three receptions for 70 yards) seemed to exemplify the Warrior players’ feelings after the shutout win. "I was a little nervous coming in, but after the first quarter we just dominated." Instead of talking about himself, however, Spears directed this reporter to Cannon, knowing his fellow senior had excelled. "He played really well," Spears said regarding Cannon.


Cannon said, "I think this is a great team. We really have a chance (at a CIF title) if we stay together and everybody stays healthy. We’ll do good things."


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